About this Book

This excerpt includes the complete text of Haneef from Glasgow by Mohammad Hassan Alwan

Preface

These thirty-nine Arab writers are all under the age of forty. They
have flung open the doors on Arabic culture, inviting the reader
to transcend cultural boundaries and land in a region known as the
‘Arab World’.

The reader touches, feels, hears, tastes and sees the Middle East
and North Africa as it really is: cosmopolitan cities, villages, towns,
desolate mountains and deserts. And soon these complex places in a
foreign culture become recognisable and familiar as they are revealed
in poems, short stories and extracts from novels. We experience the
aches and pains of imprisoned freedom like birds in a cage; stifling
societies, sexual frustration, corrupt regimes, poverty and illiteracy.
And mapping the soil in which the seeds of fanaticism flourish, good
women are driven to madness by injustice and oppression. The subject
of war, of course, is never far away: between East and West, civil war
and the occupation of the West Bank. This writing offers a fresh,
often ingenious perspective – a world away from headlines and news
stories. Finally, there is the bliss of love and passion, the wisdom of
ancient culture, the piety of true believers, the sheer beauty of life on
earth to experience, regardless of race and class.

Hanan al-Shaykh
London, January 2010

Editor’s Note

‘Beirut39’ is a unique initiative that aims to identify and highlight
contemporary literary movements among Arab youth, and to gather
young faces and names and provide them with an opportunity to meet,
exchange expertise and ideas, and work together in literary workshops.
Young Arab writers have transcended geography and local identity
in their creative work, aligning themselves with – and inspired
by – global literary currents and movements. It is obvious, for example,
that many novelists from all over the Arab world, Mashriq and
Maghreb, belong to the same literary current across regional barriers.
Through their work, they communicate and bond with each
other despite geographical distance, such that one can easily speak of
the youthful realist novel, or neo-realist novel, or fantastic novel or
post-modern novel that young writers from all the Arab countries
have contributed to. The literature of young Arab writers has invaded
the Arab literary market, making it difficult to speak of the young
Lebanese novel, or the young Egyptian novel, or Syrian, or Saudi,
etc. A youthful pan-Arab literary movement currently dominates,
bringing together novelists from all the Arab countries, and aiming
to break down regional boundaries. This definition also applies to
poetry: there is no longer a youthful Lebanese poetry that is different
from a youthful Egyptian poetry, or a Saudi, Iraqi or Palestinian
one. Poets are collaborating to establish new styles and a new poetic
language, in addition to their unique visions. The internet age has
certainly helped them to overcome the obstacles posed by the difficulty of meeting and communicating in person.

What brings together most young Arab writers is their tone of
protest, and their rebellion against traditional literary culture. They
have announced their disobedience against the ideological bent that
exhausted Arabic literature during the 1960s and 1970s. They have
also risen above the idea of commitment so prominent a few decades
ago, which was imposed by a political-party and communal way of
thinking. Instead, they strive towards individualism, focusing on the
individual, the human being living and struggling and dreaming and
aiming for absolute freedom. Many young writers have declared their
disdain for what they describe as contrived, ‘proper’ language. Often,
they aim to express their personal concerns as they see fit, freely
and spontaneously. And it is important that they protest and reject
and announce their frustration with language itself, this language that
differs between writing and speech. They want to write as they speak,
absolutely spontaneously, unbounded by the censorship imposed
upon them firstly by the language itself, and then by religious or
moral apparatuses.

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